This is the third installment of our Ecuador trip. After we left the Galapagos we found ourselves in Guayaquil mid-afternoon on a Saturday. We had already decided that we didn’t want to stay in Guayaquil (too big, too modern, too dangerous) so we found a van service to take us inland to Cuenca. The van held 7 people and a driver and when we had a full load we set off for Cuenca. It was a bit of a hair raising trip, at least for Nancy, who didn’t like the risks the driver was taking with our lives. Actually I thought he was making a pretty good compromise between overly cautious and downright reckless and he did get us to Cuenca in a reasonable time.
In Cuenca we were lucky enough to find a room at the first place we checked - the Mansion Alcazar. This was another fine old home converted into a hotel. For dinner that evening we walked the few blocks down to the main square and dined at a popular Ecuadorian restaurant called Raymipampa. There I had my favorite Ecuadorian dish - Locro de Papa (potato soup with cheese and avocado) with my favorite Ecuadorian beer - Pilsener (Pilsener is a brand of beer there).
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| Cathedral of Immaculate Conception, Cuenca |
The next morning I explored the town while Nancy and Arden went to Mass at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception on the main square. The town has a nice old historical district to the north and a more modern district to the south. The two halves of town are separated by the Rio Tomebamba which flows through the middle of town.
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| Panama Hat Museum |
In the afternoon, we paid a visit to the Panama Hat museum (the Panama Hat was actually created in Ecuador). All the hats were too small for me but Arden and Nancy manage to find ones that suited them. I now have a better appreciation for a fine quality Panama hat - not that I can afford one - good ones are expensive.
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| In Market, Cuenca |
We spent the day wandering around the town. It is a nice walkable city. It was interesting to see so many women wearing the traditional dress - the skirts (polleras) and the colorful shawls, all topped off with a fine straw hat. Our meal that night in the restaurant of the Hotel Victoria was the best of the entire trip. A fine meal of potato soup and trucha (trout - a non-native species imported into the Andes by Europeans).
The next day we again wandered around town before leaving around noon for Banos. We had expected the bus ride to Banos to take around 3 or 4 hours (according to our hotel reception) but were surprised when a) there wasn’t even a direct bus to Banos and b) the bus we had to take to Ambato took some 7 hours and Banos was another hour beyond that. We boarded our bus and settled in for the long journey to Banos.
The distance wasn’t great but the terrain was so hilly that the progress was slow. It was dark by the time we reached Ambato, or rather the outskirts of Ambato - since the bus was continuing on to Quito it didn’t even go into the town. We were pretty much done with buses by this point so we flagged down a taxi and negotiated the fare to take us all the way to Banos - a long way for a taxi but well worth it.
We had booked a hotel in Banos the via e-mail the previous night - the Luna Runtun. It was a long way out of town but our taxi driver was accommodating and took us all the way (he got a good tip). We arrived at something like 1 minute after 9:00 when the restaurant for the hotel closed at 9:00. At first they refused to serve us but we kicked up such a fuss that they relented. Locra de Papa (Potato Soup) again.
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| View from Hotel in Banos |
The Luna Runtun is actually a very nice hotel. It is situated on top of the hill overlooking the town of Banos. The town is a long way down - some 6 or 7 miles by road and a couple of miles downhill by the more direct walking trail. They have a nice spa and pool overlooking the town but it was not quite the same as the natural hot springs baths you can get down in the town. All in all, a nice place to spend a couple of nights.
The next morning we soaked in the spa for a while before walking down the trail into town. In town we learned from a rather chatty tourist from Chicago that there are waterfalls worth seeing and a swing further up the volcano where cool pictures can be taken (the “swing at the end of the world” they call it). We negotiated with a driver to take us on a tour of the waterfalls and then up to the swing before returning us to our hotel.
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| The way out of town in a volcanic eruption, Banos. |
At the first waterfall we were enticed into taking a ride across the valley on some flimsy cable car arrangement. Basically a cage on a wire cable that is pulled back and forth by a modified truck engine. We and half a dozen Ecuadorians were in the cage when without warning they let us go and we started flying across the valley below. When we got to the middle they started up the truck engine to pull us across to the other side. After a few moments to catch our breath we were pulled back across to the other side again. Not the safest of equipment I am sure but really good fun and well worth the price of the ticket ($2).
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| Cable Car across the Valley |
We drove further down the road known as La Ruta de las Cascadas and which continues on to Puyo in the Amazon basin. We passed other waterfalls but didn’t take anymore rides across the valley. One of the more dramatic waterfalls is El Pailon del Diablo - the Devil’s Cauldron near the town of Rio Verde. To visit it required walking down a fairly long trail to the bottom of the gorge and then scrambling and literally crawling along a narrow crevice in the rock to a point behind the waterfall. The torrent of water coming down the fall was deafening and by that point we were well and truly soaked.
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| El Pailon del Diablo |
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| At El Pailon del Diablo |
The “swing at the end of the world” was further up the side of the same volcano as our hotel. On the road up there we saw for the first time how impressive the volcano (Tungurahua) was; up until this point it had been obscured by clouds. The swing itself is just a very basic swing hanging from a tree in which there is a tree house (the site is known as Casa de Arbol and it houses a seismic monitoring station). It has become something of an internet sensation and is listed as one of the things you must do before you die. It is not really scary it just allows you to take pictures that look like you are swinging out over this giant void. We all got in line to have a go and took the obligatory photos.
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| The Swing at the End of the World |
The next day was our last in Banos as we had to get Nancy and Arden back to Quito for their flight (I was staying another week). In the morning we again walked down the hill to town, but this time we took the alternate route to the statue of the Virgin Mary perched on the hillside overlooking the town.
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| The Virgin Mary Statue - Banos |
After a bit of shopping and a mediocre lunch in Banos we negotiated with a taxi driver to take us all the way to Quito. He agreed for a very reasonable rate which also included taking us up the hill to the swing again (for daylight photographs this time!) and to the hotel to pick up our bags.
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| The Swing at the End of the World in the daytime |
While buses are cheap and plentiful, the taxi made it easy for us and we had a comfortable ride from Banos to our hotel door in Quito. I discovered again how useful Google Maps are. I had downloaded and saved maps of the Quito region. As we approached Quito our taxi driver who was not from Quito had no idea how to get to our hotel. Since the GPS functionality works at all times, we were able to navigate to the hotel (the Casa San Marcos again) without any mistakes. What a shame the taxi driver didn’t have the same for his way back to Banos.
In Quito that evening I went to inquire about train travel in Ecuador. It seems to be entirely a tourist venture and there is no scheduled passenger service for Ecuadorians. I suppose buses are so cheap that it no longer makes any sense. I bought tickets for a couple of trips - one on the Devil’s Nose section in Alausi and another for a day trip from Quito to Chimborazo National Park.
The next day, after sending Nancy and Arden off to the airport, I again boarded a bus heading south to Alausi. It was about a 6 hour trip with a change of buses in Riobamba. The cost of the bus ticket was $6 while the cost of the taxi from the hotel to the bus station in Quito was $7 - the buses are such good value. Arriving in Alausi in the late afternoon, I found a room at a nice hotel overlooking this small hillside town (Hotel La Quinta). In the evening it was overcast and damp and I wandered the empty streets looking for somewhere to eat. Most places were closed and there was hardly anyone on the streets. I began to think I would be the only person on the train the next day.
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| Alausi |
The train departure was scheduled for 08:00 and by that time the station was bustling with people, mainly European tourists - I guess no one stays in Alausi overnight but I never found out where they did stay. The section of railway, El Nariz del Diablo (the Devil’s Nose) is one of the more interesting and challenging sections of line between Guayaquil and Quito. It uses the same zig-zag forward-reverse technique as the railway up the Andes from Lima to Huancayo. We traveled down the hill from Alausi and dropped down dramatically to the bottom of the Devil’s Nose. At the bottom of the hill we stopped and visited a museum, had some refreshment and then started off back up the hill.
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| El Nariz del Diablo Train |
I enjoyed it, but then I am a bit of a train nut. However, even I admit that it was a long way to go for this very short ride. By 11:00 am I was back on the bus leaving Alausi for Quito.
The next morning, Saturday, I was off again on my second train ride from Quito south to El Boliche in the Chimborazo National Park. I arrived at the station to find a different group of people this time. Yesterday’s trip was almost entirely made up of foreign tourists, on today’s trip I think I was the only non-Ecuadorian. The ride was pleasant enough - we traveled south from Quito to Machachi through beautiful lush green farmlands - Ecuador is certainly a beautiful country.
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| Machachi Station |
From Machachi we headed off towards the Chimborazo National Park and El Boliche. There we stopped and did a little hike in the forest and partook of some herbal tea before our return to Quito. The way the trip worked is that we took the train out of Quito in the morning and another load of people took the bus. In Chimborazo we switched and we took the bus back to Quito whilst the other folk took the train back.
On the bus home we stopped for lunch at a so-called “bee farm”. They fed us and then proceeded to talk about bees and organic gardening. It was all quite interesting for a while but they got off into some weird areas of apitherapy and it was clear they had some extreme beliefs about medicine, health, longevity and the benefits of keeping bees. As it was they didn’t seem to have too many bees - I only saw two hives. I have more in my backyard in Sacramento.
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| The Entry to El Monte Lodge, Mindo |
For the last few days in Ecuador I arranged to a stay in the Cloud Forest near Mindo. On the Sunday morning I got a taxi to Mindo and out to the El Monte Lodge. The instructions were to proceed through Mindo and continue on a dirt road for a couple of miles until you reach the river and rope pulley system crossing the river. I was supposed to yell and someone would come and pull me across. Fortunately someone was already there so I didn’t have to shout into the jungle above the roar of the river - that would never have worked.
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| Cabin at El Monte Lodge, Mindo |
The El Monte Lodge was a very nice place - built by an American from Mississippi, Tom, and his Ecuadorian wife, Mariela, it has 4 or 5 cabins and a large common dining/lounge area. All the meals were provided at the lodge and they arranged for bird watching trips into the surrounding area.
On the Sunday afternoon, I took a walk through the forest and found again that there is abundant green plant life but not much visible bird life - there are too many places for the birds to hide. That night at dinner it was nice to meet the other guests - a rose grower from Quito and his wife a honey producer, a couple from Miami looking into starting a fragrant rose growing business in Ecuador (fragrant roses are apparently quite different to normal roses - who knew).
The next morning bright and early at 6:00 my birding guide, Neicir Arias, met me at the river crossing and off we went in search of the exotic and wonderful. For a while we walked along and saw nothing but other bird watchers. Then Neicir got all excited - there was a Toucan perched in a tree a couple of hundred yards away. We spent a long time watching it - it was a Choco Toucan. It was joined briefly by a Golden Headed Quetzal and then on the other side of the road another Toucan - a Collared Aracari.
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| The Choco Toucan |
After we got tired of the Toucans we continued on again. We saw very little until we spied some Crested Guans in the trees next to the road. Then we were treated to Guans, Toucans and Swallow Tailed Kites all in the same place - very cool and worth the price of admission right there. We continued for a few more uneventful hours before returning to the lodge. At the end of the day we had quite a list of species but as always not a lot of birds just one or perhaps two examples each of many different species.
The next day I arranged to see one of the more spectacular birds of the area - the Cock of the Rock. Groups of these birds congregate each morning in certain specific locations (called leks) and perform some sort of mating display. We left the lodge at 5:15 am to travel in the dark to this special location where along with a dozen other birdwatchers we peered at these amazing birds. I must say I was impressed, their gatherings are a wonder to behold.
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| Cocks of the Rock, Mindo |
Later in the morning I went into Mindo where some enterprising hotel owner places bunches of rotting bananas and hummingbird feeders in his garden to attract the birds. It was certainly working and there were tons of various colored tanagers and loads of hummingbirds. For a few dollars he let me sit on the patio and watch the parade of bird life passing through.
I had arranged for the taxi driver who brought me to Mindo to come pick me up and return me to Quito and right on time he arrived and off we went back to town. Unfortunately our return trip was delayed an hour or so by some horrendous accident on the road to Quito. I think it was quite bad - there was lots of screaming and sobbing from a lady involved in the accident and the accident was shown on the front page of the next day’s newspaper. I fear someone died.
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| El Panecillo, Quito |
Despite the delays we got back to Quito at a reasonable hour and I again checked into the San Marcos Hotel. I think I had seen most of what I wanted to see in Quito but my flight didn’t leave until 11:00 pm the next evening. I walked around, ate more Locra de Papa, visited El Panecillo (the statue on top of the hill overlooking the old town) and generally relaxed before my departure for the airport.
A great time in a great little country. I highly recommend Ecuador as a destination.
The final set of photos can be found here.
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